Moreover, we often fail to take sleep deprivation as seriously as alcohol intoxication, even though both immediately impair our behavior and cognition. According to Matthew Walker, "After 20 hours of being awake, you are as impaired cognitively as you would be if you were legally drunk." Driving after 24 straight hours awake gives similar levels of sleep impairment as driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.1, higher than what is considered drunk driving in many jurisdictions.

Recently, Walker went on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast to share his perspective on sleep as a neuroscientist and promote his new book, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. During their conversation, Walker and Rogan discuss what is perhaps the most appalling irony of ironies: that medical doctors - the very people who are supposed to be caring for our health - are often complacent in creating today's sleep deprived culture.

New medical residents serve 30 hour shifts, and this sleep deprivation affects not only medical residents, but also their patients. Indeed, Walker states that "Residents working a 30 hour shift are 460 percent more likely to make diagnostic errors in the intensive care unit relative to when they're working 16 hours." Doctors' lack of sleep may literally be killing patients.

But shift length is definitely not the only relevant factor to take into consideration. Some people function best at night, while others function best in the day, or for part of the day and part of the night. And Non-24 people continually vary.

So, maybe it would be best if doctors (and others) were assigned shifts that match their own circadian rhythms - or no specific hours at all, if they have Non-24.

I don't know if there are any doctors who have (or are aware they have) Non-24.

But if there were, I'm guessing they might function best if they were allowed to flexibly come to work, or not, anytime they feel well-rested enough to do a good job - and allowed to leave work anytime they wanted or needed to.

Actually, perhaps that's the way it should be even for people without Non-24.

With more freedom and flexibility in the hours they work, doctors (or anyone) would probably be much better-rested, happier, and would probably make far fewer mistakes.